Oil India wins two blocks under DSF round-II

New Delhi: Oil India Ltd (OIL), state-owned oil and gas explorer, on Thursday said it has been awarded two oil and gas blocks under the second round of Discovered Small Field (DSG) auctions.

“As part of the DSF Bid Round-II, it has been awarded two blocks, (i) onshore contract area AA/ONDSF/Tulamura/2018 covering an area of 47.23 sq km in the state of Tripura and offshore contract area KG/OSDSF/GSKW/2018 covering an area of 93.902 sq km in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin,” it said in a statement.

According to the company, this would be OIL’s first ever foray into the northeastern state of Tripura and also into KG offshore.

Bidding under DSF Round-II started on 9 August 2018, with 25 contract areas on offer covering 59 discovered oil and gas fields. The fields are spread over 3,000 sq km with prospective resource base of over 190 million tonne.

The government received 145 bids for 24 contract areas. Forty companies had participated in the bid round either individually or as a member of a consortium.

The initial bids were opened on 30 January and post-evaluation commercial bids were opened on 14 February. Of the 14 companies selected, eight are new entrants in the exploration and production sector. Evaluation of a contract area CB/ONDSF/Sanganpur/2018 has been kept in abeyance as the matter is subjudice.

Earlier in October 2018, OIL was awarded nine exploration blocks under the Open Acreage Licensing Program (OALP) Bid Round-I. Of the nine blocks awarded, two blocks are in Rajasthan and seven in the northeast region covering a combined area of 7,907 sq km.

OIL in a statement said that it is also planning to commence the exploration activities in the OALP blocks during financial year 2019-2020.

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The ongoing field development and EOR/IOR projects are expected to produce a cumulative of 54.6 million tonne (mt) of crude oil and 114 billion cubic meter (bcm) of natural gas in the next three to four years, the report said.